Drum: Age UK’s Christmas ad has to break your heart

December 5, 2017

What if Christmas was just another day. Like every day of the year, week in and week out, holidays or not.

UK charity, wants to remind people that for many older people, every day is lonely. That 1.2 million older people in the UK feel they are chronically lonely. That almost 5.7 million people aged 65 and over feel their days can be repetitive and almost 1.4 million older people admitted that Christmas isn’t a special day for them now as it just passes them by.

UK Agency, Drum, Manning Gottlieb OMD and director, Philippe Andre, at Independent Films, are giving people a glimpse of what that is like.

The “groundhog day” film simply traces the isolated life of an elderly man through the seasons. On December 25, he follows his usual pattern, not realising that it’s Christmas Day until he sees that the shops are shut.

The campaign includes Age UK’s website, social media channels and digital OOH until December 26. One of the billboards, on London’s busiest Stations, Euston, will display messages to consumers as they pass through the station.

The charity is urging people to donate to help tackle the isolation that is making nearly a million older people feel lonelier at Christmas time, two-fifths of whom have been widowed.

“My goal was to recreate what is loneliness for older people – I truly think it will touch the audience,” Andre noted.

“I truly hope people will be moved by the film and become more conscious about this massive problem older people are suffering from in silence and isolation.”

Manning Gottlieb OMD and 4Sales have brokered a partnership between the charity and Channel 4’s series, Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds, for a Christmas Special episode, created and produced by CPL Productions, on December 18.
Drum has created sponsorship idents, which will feature around the show’s broadcast and contextual, as well as advertising spots that feature the series’ cast discussing programme content.

Kathi Hall, head of content strategy and brand at Age UK, commented, “Launching our Christmas campaign is a very special time of year for us because it gives us the chance to show the day in day out reality of chronic loneliness and raise much needed funds for the charity to help vulnerable older people. Working with Philippe we believe we have been able to capture the poignancy of loneliness in powerful content that will stay in people’s minds well after the Christmas season is over.”